Book•
Slavery and Human Progress
01 Jan 1984-
TL;DR: In this article, the Pulitzer Prize-winner David Brion Davis provides a penetrating survey of slavery and emancipation from ancient times to the twentieth century, showing that slavery was once regarded as a form of human progress, playing a critical role in the expansion of the western world.
Abstract: Pulitzer Prize-winner David Brion Davis here provides a penetrating survey of slavery and emancipation from ancient times to the twentieth century. His trenchant analysis puts the most recent international debates about freedom and human rights into much-needed perspective. Davis shows that slavery was once regarded as a form of human progress, playing a critical role in the expansion of the western world. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that views of slavery as a retrograde institution gained far-reaching acceptance. Davis illuminates this momentous historical shift from "progressive" enslavement to "progressive" emancipation, ranging over an array of important developments--from the slave trade of early Muslims and Jews to twentieth-century debates over slavery in the League of Nations and the United Nations. In probing the intricate connections among slavery, emancipation, and the idea of progress, Davis sheds new light on two crucial issues: the human capacity for dignifying acts of oppression and the problem of implementing social change.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on norms that prohibit, both in international law and in the domestic criminal laws of states, the involvement of state and nonstate actors in activities such as piracy, slavery, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, the hijacking of aircraft, and the killing of endangered animal species.
Abstract: The dynamics by which norms emerge and spread in international society have been the subject of strikingly little study. This article focuses on norms that prohibit, both in international law and in the domestic criminal laws of states, the involvement of state and nonstate actors in activities such as piracy, slavery, counterfeiting, drug trafficking, the hijacking of aircraft, and the killing of endangered animal species. It analyzes the manner in which these norms have evolved into and been institutionalized by global prohibition regimes and argues that there are two principal inducements to the formation and promotion of such regimes. The first is the inadequacy of unilateral and bilateral law enforcement measures in the face of criminal activities that transcend national borders. The second is the role of moral and emotional factors related to neither political nor economic advantage but instead involving religious beliefs, humanitarian sentiments, fears, prejudices, paternalism, faith in universalism, the individual conscience, and the compulsion to proselytize. The ultimate success or failure of an international regime in effectively suppressing a particular activity depends, however, not only on the degree of commitment to its norms or the extent of resources devoted to carrying out its goals but also on the vulnerability of the activity to its enforcement measures.
792 citations
TL;DR: The role of global norms in defining states' interests, rather than viewing norms solely as external constraints on state behavior, has been examined in this paper, where the crucial role of a strengthened global norm of racial equality in motivating U.S. anti-apartheid sanctions is discussed.
Abstract: The extraordinary success of transnational anti-apartheid activists in generating great power sanctions against South Africa offers ample evidence that norms, independent of strategic and economic considerations, are an important factor in determining states' policies. The crucial role of a strengthened global norm of racial equality in motivating U.S. anti-apartheid sanctions illustrates the limitations of conventional international relations theories, which rely primarily on structural and material interest explanations, and supports theoretically derived constructivist claims. In particular, this case suggests that analysts should examine the role of global norms in defining states' interests, rather than viewing norms solely as external constraints on state behavior.
393 citations
18 Apr 2002
TL;DR: The political economy of design has been studied extensively in the field of ecology and design as discussed by the authors, with a focus on the design of culture and the culture of design as a problem of ecology.
Abstract: I THE PROBLEM OF ECOLOGICAL DESIGN 1 Introduction: The Design of Culture and the Culture of Design 2 Human Ecology as a Problem of Ecological Design II PATHOLOGIES AND BARRIERS 3 Slow Knowledge 4 Speed 5 Verbicide 6 Technological Fundamentalism 7 Ideasclerosis 8 Ideasclerosis, Continued III THE POLITICS OF DESIGN 9 None So Blind: The Problem of Ecological Denial (with David Ehrenfeld) 10 Twine in the Baler 11 Conservation and Conservatism 12 The Politics Worthy of the Name 13 The Limits of Nature and the Educational Nature of Limits IV DESIGN AS PEDAGOGY 14 Architecture and Education 15 The Architecture of Science 16 2020: A Proposal 17 Education, Careers, and Callings 18 A Higher Order of Heroism V CHARITY, WILDNESS, AND CHILDREN 19 The Ecology of Giving and Consuming 20 The Great Wilderness Debate, Again 21 Loving Children: The Political Economy of Design Bibliography Index
372 citations
Book•
22 Sep 2009TL;DR: In this article, Neta Crawford proposes a theory of argument in world politics which focuses on the role of ethical arguments in fostering changes in long-standing practices and offers a prescriptive analysis of how ethical arguments could be deployed to deal with the problem of humanitarian intervention.
Abstract: Arguments have consequences in world politics that are as real as the military forces of states or the balance of power among them. Neta Crawford proposes a theory of argument in world politics which focuses on the role of ethical arguments in fostering changes in long-standing practices. She examines five hundred years of history, analyzing the role of ethical arguments in colonialism, the abolition of slavery and forced labour, and decolonization. Pointing out that decolonization is the biggest change in world politics in the last five hundred years, the author examines ethical arguments from the sixteenth century justifying Spanish conquest of the Americas, and from the twentieth century over the fate of Southern Africa. The book also offers a prescriptive analysis of how ethical arguments could be deployed to deal with the problem of humanitarian intervention. Co-winner of the APSA Jervis-Schroeder Prize for the best book on international history and politics.
336 citations
TL;DR: This article deconstructed and historicized Creole Exceptionalism and its empirical, theoretical, and sociological flaws surveyed, and proposed alternatives more consistent with Creole structures and their development, and more likely to help linguists address some practical problems faced by Creole speakers.
Abstract: “Creole Exceptionalism” is defined as a set of beliefs, widespread among both linguists and nonlinguists, that Creole languages form an exceptional class on phylogenetic and0or typological grounds. It also has nonlinguistic (e.g., sociological) implications, such as the claim that Creole languages are a “handicap” for their speakers, which has undermined the role that Creoles should play in the education and socioeconomic development of monolingual Creolophones. Focusing on Caribbean Creoles, and on Haitian Creole in particular, it is argued that Creole Exceptionalism, as a sociohistorically rooted “regime of truth” (in Foucault’s sense), obstructs scientific and social progress in and about Creole communities. Various types of Creole Exceptionalist beliefs are deconstructed and historicized, and their empirical, theoretical, and sociological flaws surveyed. These flaws have antecedents in early creolists’ theories of Creole genesis, often explicitly couched in Eurocentric and (pre-0quasi-)Darwinian doctrines of human evolution. Despite its historical basis in colonialism and slavery and its scientific and sociological flaws, Creole Exceptionalism is still enshrined in the modern linguistics establishment and its classic literature, a not unexpected state given the social structure of scientific communities and the interaction between ideology and “paradigm-making.” The present Foucauldian approach to Creole Exceptionalism is an instantiation of a well-defined area of the linguistics0ideology interface. The conclusion proposes alternatives more consistent with Creole structures and their development, and more likely to help linguists address some practical problems faced by Creole speakers. (Colonialism, Creole languages, Darwinism, Haitian Creole, history of linguistics, ideology, language evolution)*
232 citations